


playing your part

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Actors AU, Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-18
Updated: 2016-08-18
Packaged: 2018-08-09 11:31:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7800157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz and Simmons have starred together on a hit TV show for seven years. But when their characters go from friends-to-lovers, things get messy in their personal lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	playing your part

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to itsavolcano for the beta!

“ _So_ ,” the interviewer begins, smirking at the two actors sitting across from her. “After _years_ of will-they, won’t-they and unresolved sexual tension, your characters have _finally_ taken the next step towards a romantic relationship. How has that been, adjusting?”

Jemma laughs as Fitz groans. “Oh, well, you know,” she starts. “It’s a bit strange! Fitz and I are best friends, and we’ve been doing this show for _seven years_. None of us thought it’d get this far, to be honest!”

“I’m still not convinced it’s not like, a bro-type love,” Fitz grumbles, and the interviewer snickers as Jemma rolls her eyes.

“No, no, I’m very excited for these two characters. They’ve been through a lot! And they love each other so much, in every kind of way. It’s nice to see them being able to take this step together and to not be afraid of their feelings anymore,” Jemma continues, her words obviously carefully considered.

“Yeah, but it’s a bit gross, anyway. Like kissing your sister, isn’t it?” Fitz interjects, bumping Jemma’s shoulder and causing the interviewer to snort. There’s a moment where Jemma looks at him almost in confusion or hurt, but she quickly smooths her features out and turns back to the camera with a smile.

“Well, there you have it, like kissing your sister. Let’s hope our characters don’t feel the same way!” Jemma flashes the interviewer another grin, and Fitz can’t help marveling at the way she seems to charm everyone within her orbit. Sometimes he feels like a troll when he does interviews with her, some sad specimen made human-like only by his proximity to her.

He really, really wishes he hadn’t been lying about how it feels to kiss her.

++

Jemma leans back, surveying their usual bar as Fitz continues with his story. They’d taken to coming here after work a couple times a week years ago—sometimes with other cast members, but more often just the two of them. Most people here are regulars and they rarely get disturbed. Sometimes they don’t even drink; they stay late and just talk. It’s quite a strange feeling, Jemma thinks, never wanting to be without someone. This whole time she assumed that’s just what having a best friend was like.

“You know,” Jemma starts, picking at the label on her cider.

Fitz tilts his head at her while he finishes downing his beer, gesturing to the waiter for another. “I know what?” he asks when she doesn’t finish her thought.

Jemma bites her lip, reminding herself of all the reasons why she has never brought this up before, reminding herself that alcohol makes her brave but also leads to endless regrets the next morning. But being around him has become something painful and she misses the easy friendship and partnership they’d built over the years. Somewhere along the line, almost without her realizing it, he’d become her best friend, and even if that’s all they’ll ever be, the casual disregard he’s been showing for her feelings has hurt more than she can articulate. It’s not the right time—it’s _never_ the right time—but the ache she’s been pushing down is suffocating her.

“You’ve been… hurting my feelings,” she says finally, internally cringing at how juvenile she sounds.

He glances at her then, wide-eyed, taking her statement much more seriously than she’d anticipated. “What? How? I didn’t realize… what did I do? I’m sorry, Jemma.” He says it in a rush, so sincerely that she hates herself for being touchy about the whole situation. But it’s out now, uncomfortably settling between them like smoke burning their lungs, and she has to continue.

“It’s just, all these interviews. You keep going _on and on_ about how much you hate that our characters are… are _romantically involved_ and how awkward it is, and how the kissing scenes are the _worst_ , and it’s just… I mean—” she breaks off, taking another pull of cider to ignore the way her bones are screaming at her to run.

If anything, he looks relieved. “What? That’s been upsetting you? But we always joke like that, Jemma. Plus, I mean, those scenes are awkward! Everyone in this industry says that for a reason. We’re actors; it’s just a job.”

This, then, is why she’s never brought the subject up before. It _is_ just a job. They come to work, joke around, run through their lines, do takes over and over. She’s the only one up late at night, thinking about the imprint of his lips on hers, imagining what it would be like to keep going after they’ve stopped filming, to push his mouth open with hers and actually kiss. Even their chaste kisses felt promising and caused her heart to speed up in embarrassing ways. But he’s right: it’s just a job.

She’s mortified to feel tears prickling against her lashes and furious at herself for being so unprofessional. All of her rebuttals die in her throat.

She finishes her drink and fishes out cash from her purse, aware that Fitz is gaping at her, at a loss. She carefully counts out her portion, plus a generous tip, and stands up to leave. That seems to jar Fitz from his daze; he reaches for her, conciliatory. “Jemma, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it bothered you.”

Pain and anger mix within her until the bitter concoction bubbles from her lips. “Really, Fitz? You didn’t think it would bother me to watch you telling the whole world, over and over and over again, that kissing me is such a _nightmare_ to be endured?”

He pulls his hand back quickly as if burned, and she hopes her words have stung and prays they haven’t. “That’s not what… I didn’t say that. I just said it was awkward. I won’t joke about it anymore, Jem, I promise.” His blue eyes are shining with sincerity, and suddenly she hates how she sees herself reflected in his gaze. She’s embarrassed and defeated, so she does what she’s always been good at: she flees.

She’s outside before she remembers he was her ride. She calls Daisy because crying alone in her apartment is one humiliation too many.

++

Daisy is giving him tight little looks throughout the day, and it’s starting to grate. He still doesn’t understand what Jemma wants from him—his comments hadn’t been outside the realm of their normal teasing with the press, and she herself had said it was a bit weird. At any rate, he’d apologized.

He finds Daisy in her trailer when they’re both on break and Jemma has been called back for a scene with May.

“Look,” he says without preamble. “Why are you acting like this to me?”

Daisy glares at him, not even bothering to hide her annoyance. “You really upset Jemma the other night, and I don’t like when people upset Jemma. She’s the nicest person on the planet.”

“Hey!” he returns, defensively. “You think I don’t know that? She’s my best friend! She’s just being really strange about this whole situation, and I apologized anyway.” He pauses as Daisy continues to stare at him, unimpressed.

Fitz sighs, leaning against the counter in her trailer and pinching his nose in frustration. “She won’t even talk to me,” he says softly, sadly, unsure why he’s confessing to Daisy when she’s clearly already chosen sides. (And why are there even _sides_? he thinks. This whole situation came out of nowhere and disrupted his carefully cultivated equilibrium.)

Daisy relaxes imperceptibly at that, moving closer to him and cocking her head slightly, analyzing him as if he were a complicated math problem she just couldn’t figure out.

“Fitz,” she says slowly. “Just think about it, okay? Doesn’t it seem obvious why this might be upsetting her?”

Fitz huffs, clenching his fists to his sides. “ _No,”_ he shakes his head emphatically. “It’s not obvious! Why do you think _I’m_ so upset by this?”

Daisy rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Fitz, for someone as brilliant as you are…” She stares at him and he scowls back, neither willing to budge. Finally, Daisy sighs in defeat. “Look, she’d kill me if I told you, okay? It’s really important to her that you two are friends and partners.”

“We are! I’m not the one who stopped talking to her just because of a few innocuous comments at a press junket!”

“Innocuous comments? Do you think a girl wants to hear that it’s disgusting to kiss her?”

“I didn’t say disgusting!” Fitz protests. “It’s awkward for her too, she admitted that!”

Daisy groans. “ _Maybe_ ,” she says slowly, as if speaking to a child, “Jemma kind of _liked_ kissing you. And _maybe_ it hurts to hear you telling everyone how awful it was.”

Fitz’s mouth hangs open almost comically. “What? But… but what? But that doesn’t even make sense, she’s _never_ …”

Daisy grabs a bottle of water, and heads towards the door. “Look, I didn’t say anything, okay? Just, try not to be a dick around her. I know you didn’t mean it, but she’s really upset. Just give her some time and she’ll be fine.”

Fitz nods mutely as Daisy swings the trailer door open. He hears her yelling excitedly at Trip but still he can’t bring himself to move.  

++

“Hey, uh, you want me to pick you up tonight?” Fitz asks, scratching his neck nervously. For a week he’s been mulling over what Daisy said and finds himself no closer to a solution than before. He could talk to Jemma, of course, but he has never revealed quite what he feels for her and doesn’t know how to start now. Besides, Daisy had said _maybe_ Jemma had _kind of_ liked kissing him. He didn’t have to be a genius to realize the distance between that and “I fell in love with you almost seven years ago and every moment since then has been wonderful and excruciating.” He can barely admit it to himself, let alone his best friend who just now seems to be thawing after their fight.

Jemma pauses to sip her tea, swallowing carefully. “Uh, for the premiere?”

“Yeah, ‘course. We planned to go together ages ago.”

“Oh… I’m sorry, Fitz. I agreed to ride with Trip, actually. It totally slipped my mind. We can pick you up as well, if you’d like?”

Fitz swallows back what he wants to say, which is a lot of unfair things towards a truly good man. It’s not Trip’s fault he fell for Jemma as soon as he’d been offered a recurring role. It’s certainly not his fault Fitz is too much of a coward to say anything.

“No, that’s fine,” he answers, incredulous that she’d think he’d want to be anywhere near her and Trip during a premiere. He finds that of everything, what hurts the most is that she would agree to go with someone else and not even tell him. She knows better than anyone how uncomfortable he is at these things—he’s only ever enjoyed himself with her. And now it’s too late to back out.

“Are you punishing me?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

“What?” She meets his eyes finally, and he’s surprised to see her looking a little lost. “That’s not it, I just… I forgot. I’m sorry.”

He nods and turns to leave, deciding to call up Hunter. His girlfriend’s out of town—maybe they can go together and wear thrift store t-shirts to the event. The thought makes him feel a little better.

++

“Okay… what the fuck, Simmons?”

Jemma flinches, grabbing another drink from a passing server and downing half of it at once. “What, Daisy?”

Daisy glares. “You know what. Why are you here with Trip? I thought you and Fitz were fine again, and you know how much he hates these things without you.”

Jemma scoffs. “He’s been in the industry for awhile, I think he can handle one movie premiere without me.”

Daisy crosses her arms and considers her friend, before suddenly grabbing her hand and dragging her to a quiet area away from the crowd. “Seriously, Jemma, what the fuck? Fitz looks uncomfortable even with Hunter, you and Trip aren’t having fun. Trip’s a nice guy, why are you toying with him?”

“I’m not toying with anybody,” Jemma argues. “I like Trip, and he likes me, so we came out to a premiere. I don’t see what the big deal is!”

“The _big deal_ is you’re in love with Fitz, you’re pushing him away and hurting him, and you’re going to end up hurting Trip too. That’s not like you.”

Jemma finishes the rest of her drink and leans her head against the wall. She breathes deeply and tries to blink the beginning of tears away. “I’m in love with Fitz and he doesn’t love me back. I just think, for the sake of my sanity, that I need to try to move on.”

Daisy stands next to her, hesitating before slipping an arm around Jemma’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she says. “But have you ever thought about just talking to him? You don’t know that he doesn’t feel the same way.”

Jemma smiles and somehow it’s more heartbreaking than her tears. “You told him, didn’t you? About why I was upset with his interviews?”

Daisy stiffens and immediately tries to explain. “Not entirely! Just a little, but only because he was being so dumb and it was hurting you.”

Jemma cuts her off with a dejected wave. “It’s okay, honestly. But having talked to him, don’t you think he would say something to me if he felt the same? But he hasn’t. If anything, he’s been tiptoeing around me like he’s trying not to hurt my feelings.”

Daisy has nothing to say to that, but she stays next to Jemma, holding her tight as she finally starts crying. Trip finds them a half hour later, takes one look at their faces, and drags them out for ice cream.

Trip, Jemma thinks, is a real catch. He’s someone she wishes she could love. She can sense something amorphous developing between him and Daisy, and Jemma honestly feels relieved. She can’t get over her stupid crush on Fitz, but that doesn’t mean everyone else should be miserable too.

++

Jemma stayed out much later with Trip and Daisy than she’d intended and her head is pounding from a dinner of only champagne and ice cream. It takes her far too long to realize the knocking is coming from her front door and not her head. She groans, pulling the covers over her and nearly drifting back to sleep when she hears Fitz’s plaintive voice calling her name.

Fitz is the last person on Earth she wants to see, having spent the night before drunk and crying over him. And she probably looks like hell, too. But she apparently can’t stop her masochistic tendencies when it comes to him because she stumbles out of bed, not even bothering to throw a robe on over her pajamas. He’s seen her in worse states, anyway.

She opens the door and he sidesteps her, shoving his hands in his pockets. She recognizes his horrible shirt from the premiere. He looks about as rough as she feels, which causes some satisfaction. She closes the door, facing him with a sigh.

“Fitz, what—”

“The kissing scenes are _awkward_ , Jemma.”

Her mouth drops open. So they’re doing this after all. “I. Get. It,” she seethes, wondering why she had to be the heartbroken idiot who brought it up in the first place and angry that he can’t just let the whole embarrassing thing go.

“No,” he says, “You don’t. They’re awkward because I—” he falters, covering his eyes with a hand before dropping it again and confessing in a rush. “They’re awkward because I love you. Because I’ve been in love with you for a long time, and every time we have to do one of those scenes it’s just, it just reminds me of what we _aren’t_. Because I’m trying so hard to be professional and it _hurts_.”

Jemma blinks up at him, anything she might have said caught in her throat. She stares at him, hoping the hammering of her heart isn’t as loud as it feels, and then she impulsively steps forward, pressing her lips against his, drowning in the softness. It takes a moment before she realizes he isn’t kissing her back—that this kiss isn’t even as intimate as their many on-screen ones.

He pushes her back carefully, squeezing his eyes shut, untethering her.

“Look,” he chokes, “Daisy told me why my comments had been bothering you. I get that now. And it has been nice… kissing you.” He takes a deep breath before meeting her eyes. “I can see why it would be upsetting to think maybe you’re not good or anything, and of course it’s not that. But I don’t want… it’s not just this—it’s not just physical for me, okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“This happens,” Fitz says, his expression both mortified and pleading, like he knows she could finish his thoughts if she'd just try. “We’ve been friends for so long, and we see each other all the time. You add in this and the… the physical reaction is natural. But that doesn’t mean we should—” he gestures between the two of them, lamely.

“Why not?” Jemma insists, replaying the part where he’d said he’d loved her and then pushed her away. “Why can’t we just try and see—”

“Jemma,” Fitz breathes out like a prayer. “Because you’re everything to me. I can’t just try with you. If we… if we went any further there’s just, there’s no going back for me.”

Jemma stares at him, taking in his shimmering eyes, his trembling fingers, and thinks it’s possible that she has never truly understood her best friend at all.

“And what if I feel the same way?”

Fitz bites his lip, looking for all the world like this conversation is the most difficult thing he’s ever had to endure. “We’re colleagues. Our show’s just been renewed for another two seasons—”

“This happens all the time, actors on shows dating. Our fans seem to think we’ve been together for ages anyway,” she argues.

“Yeah, but how many times does it work out? And then we’d have to deal with the fallout at work and with all our friends.”

“You don’t think we’re different?” Jemma tries and mostly fails to keep the hurt out of her voice. In all the scenarios she’d run in her head, she hadn’t anticipated him loving her back and yet having no faith in their ability to make a relationship work.

“Doesn’t everyone think their situation is different? That doesn’t change the reality.”

“You never used to be this scared,” Jemma accuses as her last resort.

Fitz smiles sadly, scuffing his shoe on her rug. “I know. I know I’m being a coward, but—” he holds his palms up, and for once she doesn’t understand what he’s offering.

She remembers the shy young man, boy really, she’d met when they first auditioned together. He’d blown her away, their chemistry crackling and instant. But as soon as the readthrough was finished, he’d withdrawn, painfully shy. It had taken years to get where they are now, and he’s still uncomfortable with his success. He still follows her around like her shadow at every glitzy event, still seems happiest to spend all of his free time watching TV and talking about anything and nothing with her.

She knows this. And as much as she thinks he’s wrong about them, as unfair as she thinks he’s being, she also has the fiercest urge to protect his sensitive heart. She takes a deep breath and steps forward, wrapping him up in a hug.

“It’s okay,” she says into his shoulder. “You’re my best friend in the world.”

His breath hitches and he opens his mouth as if wanting to say something in response, but he swallows it back down.

“Yeah,” he finally replies. “You’re my best friend too. The last thing I want is for things to change.”

 _Oh, Fitz,_ she thinks. _It’s too late for that_. But she’s too exhausted to continue this argument.

They stay like this for minutes, lifetimes, until he slowly pulls back and smiles tremulously at her. This should be a beginning, but instead he walks out her door. She turns her music up loudly to cover the shattering of her heart.

++

Jemma drags Fitz in front of the camera for the Facebook Q&A. Seven years into a hit TV show and even now he gets nervous doing these sorts of things, but being able to do promotions with her, eased by their effortless give-and-take, has always calmed him some. Still, calling him a willing participant would be a stretch.

“What’s it feel like for Fitz and Simmons now that their characters are in a relationship?” he asks, reading from a paper of pre-selected questions and clearly trying not to indicate any annoyance at once again having to answer the question that almost ruined everything.

Jemma pauses, and both of them tense imperceptibly. “Well, it’s always going to be awkward, I suppose,” Jemma answers, fighting against the memory of his lips on hers, a moment she’s spent too many hours reliving.

“But it’s nice for the characters,” she continues. “Hopefully they can have some more happy moments in the future!”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It’s nice for the characters.”

“Oh, so now you’re happy for them?” she mock-gasps, and they both laugh, but nothing seems as easy as it did in the past.

After a few minutes of seamless banter, someone makes a motion behind the camera, and Jemma smiles. “They want us to speed up!” Fitz resumes his usual grumbling as they finish answering questions before launching into a charades portion.

“Die, the door is locked??” she asks as soon as they’re off camera, not containing her glee at all. “I had no idea you were so bad at charades!”

Fitz huffs. “Yeah, we can’t all be geniuses. How’d you get mine so fast? You cheated, didn’t you? Saw the paper!”

She smirks, tossing him a water bottle from the refrigerator. “Of course, that’s the _only_ explanation, I must’ve cheated. You’ve always been a sore loser.”

He laughs as he catches the bottle and skips over to her. “Says the woman who wouldn’t speak to me for days after I proved her wrong with that Shakespeare trivia.”

Jemma glares at him and he holds his hands up quickly in surrender. “Sorry, I know better than to bring that up.” There’s a companionable silence as they walk back towards their trailers.

“You, uh, want to grab a drink? JJ’s?” Fitz asks, scratching behind his ear nervously. Something tight aches within her stomach; they hadn’t been this careful around each other in years. And just for drinks at their usual bar.

Jemma wants to say yes so badly she can feel the word fighting on her tongue. But in the months since their tearful exchange at her apartment, she has found herself unable to let go of the idea that she can make him change his mind about them. He wants to spend all of his time with her, and she lets him, but she’s finally starting to accept that he really is content to be her best friend forever.

The way her heart pumps erratically when they’re asked the same questions over and over about their romantic scenes will only hurt her in the end. Fitz will never alter their status quo and as much as that pains her, she knows that at this point she’s responsible for breaking her own heart.

“Maybe some other night,” she says softly, hating herself for causing the cloudiness in his eyes. “I’m just a bit tired, and we have an early call time tomorrow.”

It’s true and it’s not. She’s always tired.

++

She’s a widely respected actress, but Jemma has never considered herself popular with men. In her mind, she’s still that awkward teenager confused about LA and the US in general, too skinny and too smart for anyone to really like, caught in a strange new world where everyone strives to hide their real selves. Not to mention for years she’s been hiding a painful love for her costar.

But now that she’s determined to let go of it, she’s learned that finding dates is easier than she could ever have imagined. Sure, most of them lead nowhere. The guys in this town must be extraordinarily dull because she doesn’t find anyone that interesting. It’s a pleasant distraction, nonetheless.

Fitz, for his part, has the decency to not make fun of her or act wounded. Hurt as he is, he’s aware that if he’d made a different choice she might have dated him. No woman would wait around forever, especially not one as extraordinary as Jemma Simmons.

Still, when he sees a picture of her and that cabbage-headed movie star _Milton_ on the cover of some gossip magazine in the grocery checkout line, he can’t help but want to hit something and cry at the same time. “Ugh, ‘hi uh I’m Milton,’” he mocks under his breath, not even caring if anyone overhears him. The caption indicates that they’ve been seeing quite a lot of each other, and he doesn’t know what hurts more: that she’s found someone so quickly (okay, maybe he’s not being fair, but months after implying she loved him was really all she needed to get over him? Because he’s pretty sure he’ll be the stupid sod still in love with her on his deathbed.) or that she hadn’t told him they were serious or that she was choosing someone like _Milton_. Who, fine, never seemed to be in the tabloids for anything bad, who donated quite a bit to charity and was always showing up at children’s hospitals dressed as a character from one of his movies, but _really_. Fitz just didn’t know what Jemma saw in him.

He grabs a copy of the magazine and throws it on top of his groceries, avoiding eye contact with the cashier. He can already imagine the headline: _TV star Leo Fitz spotted with a magazine all about his co-star’s love life! Is there a love triangle in the mix?_ Actually, that’s a horrible headline. He hopes the writer does a nicer job while detailing his many humiliations.

++

Fitz debates not answering the phone. He’s read the offending article three times and has decided to allow tonight for wallowing in self-pity before forcing himself to be social tomorrow, and he’s not sure he’s in the mood for Daisy’s exuberance. Or, if he’s honest with himself, the sad judgment she tries and fails to keep from showing.

He scrubs his face tiredly and answers the phone with a sigh. “Hey, Daisy, I’m not sure—”

But she cuts him off as if she hadn’t heard. “Fitz, you need to get down to St. Francis right away. It’s Jemma.”

He nearly drops the phone as his heart hammers painfully. He shakes his head, partly terrified and partly refusing to believe this is anything but a prank, even as he is forced to acknowledge that Daisy would never be so cruel.

“Wha-what?” he manages to stammer. “Daisy, what happened?”

He hears her take a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t… they were meeting me and… and a-a drunk driver hit them. Milton called me. He’s okay, he said they think she’ll be okay too, but I… _Fitz._ ”

He’s out the door before he can think. He doesn’t stop for red lights.

++

Fitz runs into the ER and sees Daisy sitting next to Milton, his arm in a sling and a glassy expression in his eyes. “Where is she?” Fitz demands, a small voice in his head reminding him to check up on Milton as well, but he’s too terrified to focus on anything but Jemma right now.

Daisy rushes forward, throwing her arms around him and pressing her wet cheek against his neck. “She’s still in surgery. They said they would let us know as soon as possible. The doctors… they seemed… they said they were cautiously optimistic.”

Fitz’s first instinct is to yell, “What the _fuck_ does ‘cautiously optimistic’ mean?” but Daisy is clinging to him desperately and he knows he needs to get control over himself. He leads her back to the chairs, setting her between himself and Milton, willing his breathing to steady.

“Are… um, are you all right?” Fitz finally asks, nodding towards Milton’s arm. Milton looks up at him, eyes wide, and Fitz realizes this might be the first conversation they’ve had without Jemma standing nearby with her buzzing nervous energy.

“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine, thanks. They gave me some good painkillers.” He pauses, rubbing his palms against his pants. “I’m, I’m really sorry.”

Fitz and Daisy both tilt their heads at him, confused, and he blinks rapidly. “Maybe, there was something I could’ve… it just came out of nowhere.”

“It’s not your fault,” Daisy says quickly. “Of course it’s not. It’s that bastard who was driving drunk.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he shakes his head, and Fitz worries a little that the doctors haven’t properly checked him out. “It’s just—” he turns to Fitz, looking at a loss. “I know that she’s your—”

But whatever he meant to tell Fitz is interrupted by a doctor’s clipped steps. The three of them jump to their feet, talking over each other before the doctor holds up a silencing hand.

“The surgery went really well. We managed to stop all the internal bleeding. She’s going to be in the hospital for a while as she recovers, and physical therapy will be a long road. But there’s no reason to believe she won’t make a full recovery.”

Fitz leans forward, placing his hands on his knees and hoping he doesn’t collapse out of relief right here. Daisy slaps him on the back, and he winces, but he’s never felt so lighthearted in his life. _She’s fine she’s fine Jemma is alive and whole it’s going to be okay_.

“She’s sleeping now, but she’ll probably wake up soon, if you’d like to see her.” Daisy, Milton, and Fitz all immediately start to follow her, but she holds up a warning hand, not unkindly. “Only one of you for now, sorry.”

Daisy immediately steps back, eyeing Fitz, who’s frozen to the spot. He wants to be there so badly it burns. Some selfish part of him wants to be the only person she sees when she wakes up, but nausea overtakes him when he remembers their tearful exchange at her apartment all those months ago. He gave up the right to be the most important person in her life, and he’s never regretted it more.

He nods at Milton, not trusting his voice at the moment. “Are, are you sure?” Milton asks. “I know that you’re—”

This time Fitz cuts him off. He can’t bear to hear what Milton knows. _You’re her best friend. You’re the idiot who pushed her away. You’re the saddest excuse for a human being in the whole world._ He waves him off before collapsing back onto a chair next to Daisy.

He’ll stay here all night. He’ll stay here until they let him see her, and his silent, Jemma-less vigil is nothing less than what he deserves.

++

When Fitz is finally allowed into her room, Milton excuses himself politely and Fitz can’t help feeling like he’s acting in some strange movie and forgot to memorize his lines.

But Jemma smiles softly at him, bruises mottling her smooth skin, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that he’s ruined everything between them because she’s still alive and that’s the only important fact in the universe.

He makes it to her bedside before his legs give out, and he grasps her hand as tightly as he dares, afraid of hurting her.

“Jesus, Jemma,” he says, already sensing tears building up. “You scared me so much.”

She sniffles, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he laughs. He lays his head down, resting his cheek against her bed because he’s holding on but he can barely stand to look at her, afraid his heart might burst after all.

They sit there for minutes that feel like hours until he thinks he has the strength to sit up and look at her. Staring into her warm brown eyes, he can’t believe he’d ever forgotten that she was the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

“How’re you feeling?” he manages to choke out. “We’ve all been so worried about you.”

“Groggy, achy. Confused. Everything was just… so sudden.” She worries her bottom lip. “Fitz, what’s going to happen at work? We still have reshoots for the finale, there’s not going to be time for—”

He cuts her off with a press of his lips to her hand, and she looks at him warily. “Shh, Jemma, don’t worry about that. Coulson’ll figure something out, you know he will. You just need to focus on getting better, okay?”

She nods, and he looks up, seeing Milton’s outline in the doorway. He stands slowly, reluctantly. “I’d better go,” he says, nodding towards the door, and she stares up at him without speaking.

“Um… just, just don’t scare me like that again, okay?” he says, smiling down at her playfully, hoping she can’t see through him the way she always has in the past. “I’m just… I’m not strong enough to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

She blinks rapidly but doesn’t say anything, and he turns to leave.

“Fitz,” she calls, when he’s almost at the door, and he pauses, not sure what he wants to hear from her. She coughs slightly, cheeks tinged pink. “Come back to me?” she asks, and he thinks they must have given her some intense painkillers for her to be this vulnerable in front of him after everything that’s happened.

“Of course,” he replies finally. “You know I always will.” He tosses her a lopsided grin, hoping she can understand just how very much she’s loved in every way that he knows how.

++

The next few weeks Fitz barely sleeps. He’s at work doing reshoots for the finale, visiting Jemma every chance he has, and trying desperately to avoid the paparazzi, who are throwing questions in his face that cut him more deeply than he could’ve thought possible. _You seem to be spending a lot of time at the hospital. How does Milton feel about that? It’s the first time in seven years that you and Jemma haven’t been filming together, is that strange?_

 _No,_ he thinks bitterly. _It’s like showing up to work with half your body missing. That’s not strange at all._

He’s just gotten home from a late night shoot, barely collapsed onto his couch, when his phone rings. He lunges for it immediately—ever since Daisy’s call almost a month ago, his cell phone causes a mild panic attack every time it rings. He sees Jemma’s face on his caller ID, scrunching up her nose in annoyance, and smiles.

“Hey, Jems,” he says, the weariness dissipating almost at once. They’ve talked every night since she’s been in the hospital. He finally has his best friend back, and it’s curing a wound he thought couldn’t possibly ever heal.

“Milton broke up with me,” she says, without preamble, and he immediately sits up.

“He did _what?_  That little shite—”

“Fitz!” she admonishes, cutting him off.

“No, he is. Is this really the time? You’re in the hospital, for god’s sake!”

She sighs, and he can just see her rolling her eyes at him. “Don’t be dramatic, I’m not dying. We hadn’t been _very_ serious anyway. He was very thoughtful about it.”

“He’s an idiot,” Fitz says, wondering why none of the men in Jemma Simmons’s life seem to deserve her at all. Even the innocuous, cabbage-headed ones.

“No, he brought up some good points, actually,” she replies and there’s a pause while they both try to think of what to say next.

“Still… I’m sorry,” he says, finally. “He didn’t deserve you.”

She laughs but doesn’t respond, and he clears his throat, suddenly nervous. “Want me to come over? I can bring Doctor Who and ice cream?”

There’s a small exhale on the other end and Fitz holds his breath. “Yeah,” she says, softly. “Yeah, actually I think that sounds nice.”

“Okay, great. Give me twenty minutes.”

++

Jemma is curled up to Fitz’s side in her hospital bed and Fitz is praying she can’t feel how fast his heart is beating. They’ve passed a pint of ice cream back and forth between them and watched three episodes of Doctor Who. It’s like the hundreds of other nights they’ve spent hanging out over hiatus, except now he knows what it feels like to kiss Jemma, and what it feels like to lose her, and what it feels like to be the biggest coward in the universe.

He thinks Jemma’s fallen asleep, but she stirs abruptly, removing her head from his shoulder. He immediately misses the warmth.

“Don’t you want to know why Milton broke up with me?” she asks.

“Um… sure, if you want to tell me,” he replies, thinking it’s the safest answer.

“He said he thought I was a great person, but that I was in love with you, and he didn’t think either of us should be wasting our time.”

“Oh…” Fitz says, at a loss. Now he’s _really_ praying she can’t feel his heartbeat.

“Yeah. The thing is, he’s right.” She stares at him, refusing to back down, and he wants to believe she’s still on painkillers but she looks as determined and clear-headed as she’s ever been. “What do you think we should do about it?”

Fitz panics. He wants so badly to run. He wants so badly to respond with, “For now? Let’s just watch Doctor Who,” because he’s so in love with her but he’s a coward and she deserves everything that he’s not.

But she’s looking at him like she knows he’s going to break her heart, and all he can think of is how he felt when Daisy called to tell him she was in the hospital, and how relieved he’d been when he’d seen her, still alive in his world.

He would do anything to protect her. For Jemma, he would die. And maybe that means he can try to be brave enough to live for her too.

He licks his lips instinctively, feeling like a teenager with a crush all over again, and her eyes flicker down. He leans forward cautiously, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, closing his eyes and breathing her in deeply. When they kiss, it’s soft and tentative, delicious but fragile.

They part slowly, and Fitz releases a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He kisses her forehead, her temple, her cheek, and she promptly bursts into tears.

He freezes. “Jemma? Are you—what’s wrong? Jemma, please talk to me.”

“Leopold Fitz, you _arse_. Would you ever have kissed me if I hadn’t almost _died_?”

He pulls her to him, holding her against his chest as she sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he murmurs, stroking her hair. “I’m an idiot. I’m such an idiot. I was afraid of how I felt about you. I didn’t think it was possible you could feel the same way. I’m so in love with you, Jemma, and I’m so sorry.”

She stills, hiccupping slightly. “You’re in love with me?”

He smiles against her head. “Um, yeah. Thought that was pretty obvious. I even admitted it before, you might recall.”

“Yeah, but that was almost a year ago. Things change.”

“This doesn’t. It hasn’t changed in seven years. If anything, I’ve just fallen more in love with you, so I’m pretty much a hopeless case now.”

She laughs, wiping at her eyes. “Sorry. I guess I just felt like… what if you don’t want to do this, once I’m out of the hospital?”

He holds her face gently in his hands, willing her to believe him. “Jem, I was an idiot and I almost lost you. I’m never going to let that happen again. I’ll be with you until the end, or until you get sick of me and toss me out.”

She smiles up at him and pulls his head down towards her, and this kiss isn’t tentative at all. It’s years of built up desire, and it’s a searing brand, and it’s everything they’ve both been too afraid to want. This kiss is a promise and they’ve never broken promises to each other, not ever.

++

“ _So_ ,” the interviewer begins, smirking at the two actors sitting across from her. “After _years_ of will-they, won’t-they and unresolved sexual tension, you two have _finally_ taken the next step in your relationship. How has that been, adjusting to dating and working together now that filming has started on the eighth season?”

Jemma laughs as Fitz groans. He hadn’t thought it possible to dislike interviews more, but now that the secret is out, everyone wants to know the story. He’d always felt exceedingly protective of his personal life, and a small part of him is still afraid things could fall apart. He doesn’t need the whole world to witness Jemma finally realizing she could do better and leaving him after all.

Jemma smiles at him, eyes crinkling, and all of his annoyance and fear immediately evaporates. “Oh, well, you know,” she starts. “It’s a bit strange! Fitz and I are best friends, and we’ve been doing this show together for seven years. And now it is a bit of a different dynamic, to be honest!”

“But it’s nice,” he finds himself saying, and Jemma looks at him with delight that she doesn’t even attempt to hide. “It’s a nice… it’s a nice feeling. I mean, not everyone gets to do something they love every day with the person they love. I feel really lucky, actually.”

The interviewer and Jemma both smile at him, and he flushes a bit. He’s not sure he’ll ever feel entirely comfortable with this, but Jemma grabs his hand and nods. “Yeah, I agree. We’re both very lucky.”

She gives his hand a reassuring squeeze and Fitz suddenly has to stop himself from telling the reporter about every single perfect thing in his life, and how all of those things are Jemma Simmons.

“Well, I’m very excited for you two. You’ve been through a lot!” the interviewer says, and Fitz feels strangely emotional, thanking her and swallowing down the lump in his throat.

“So anything in particular you’d like to see for your characters this season?” she asks, changing the subject easily.

“I’d really like for my character to get a monkey assistant,” Fitz offers eagerly. “He’s wanted one for so long!”

“Ugh, _Fitz!”_ Jemma says, rolling her eyes. But she still hasn’t let go of his hand and he twines his fingers through hers.

He will do a thousand interviews with her, every day for the rest of his life, he realizes. He will attend every premiere his agent begs him to attend, and he will dress up in something other than a t-shirt he’s found on the floor five minutes before he needs to leave. He will do everything that in the past he found anxiety-inducing or dull or insufferable or embarrassing because he has the privilege of living his life with Jemma by his side.

Jemma leads him out of the studio when the interview is over, gently swinging their arms between them. “Dinner?” she asks, leaning against him and marveling at the sunset stretched out ahead of them.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Somewhere nice.”

“So romantic,” she teases, stretching up to place a kiss on his cheek.

“Of course. We _both_ know I’m the romantic one. I might even have anticipated your good mood and made us reservations at your favorite restaurant.”

Jemma giggles and his heart stops momentarily at the sound. He pauses, pulling her in for a languid kiss that quickly becomes more heated.

He breaks off reluctantly, holding her hands in his own and resting his forehead on hers. “Jemma,” he says softly.

“Yes?” she asks, already out of breath.

“Your hands are _freezing._ ” She laughs, and shoves him playfully away from her. He pulls her back, biting down his own laughter. “And I love you,” he says, dusting kisses along her face. “I love you I love you I love you.”

She pushes him away again. “Okay, Romeo, but I’m starving. Let’s get dinner!”

He trails after her like a puppy, but she twirls to face him before he reaches her side. “And I love you too, of course.”

“Of course.”

They smile, lost in each other like they’ve been for months, for years really. _Yeah_ , Fitz thinks. _It’s a nice feeling. And it’s so much more than that._

 

 


End file.
